Monday, July 27, 2015

Here and hereafter


I'll comment on Bnonn's sequel: 


The first thing I'd note is that Bnonn's follow-up argument is far more complicated that his original argument. Yet the advertised merit of his original argument was its simplicity. Well, it didn't take long to leave simplicity behind. In order to defend his original argument, the supporting argument becomes fairly complex. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, of course. But that just means we're unlikely to win quick and easy victorious in longstanding theological debates. 

"For instance, many pedobaptists argue that children of covenant members are themselves covenant members, or should at least be taken as such, until they are old enough to explicitly repudiate that membership."

That's certainly a popular contemporary formulation. But it's questionable whether that represents the traditional Presbyterian view:


"So pedobaptists take a “loose, implicit” approach to membership. Members of the community and members of the covenant seem broadly conterminous in their view."

That wasn't my argument. Indeed, my argument explicitly distinguished the two. I see them as overlapping categories. 

Take this argument: kids that age are viewed as extensions of their parents. They aren't viewed as independent agents. 

It's like belonging to a family. You were born into it. 

"Conversely, credobaptists take a “tight, explicit” approach. There are many members of the community (children, unbelieving spouses, etc) who are not members of the covenant."

I could say the same thing in paedobaptist grounds, although I wouldn't use children to illustrate the point. 

"For my own part, I think pedobaptism is the natural position to take if the new covenant is basically the same as the old, and we are applying its signs in the same way; and if baptism merely signifies membership in the covenant community, or a kind of “implicit” membership in the covenant."

i) No doubt there are crucial differences. But even the OT distinguished between physical circumcision and "circumcision of the heart."

ii) A basic problem I have with Bnonn's position is that it suffers from overrealized eschatology. One reason I distinguish between membership in the new covenant and membership in the new covenant community is because the church isn't heaven. In a fallen world, including the church, the vegetable garden inevitably has wheat and tares. You can't weed out all the tares. You can't even see all the tares.

That doesn't mean you should abstain from church discipline, when the occasion presents itself. But because the church is unavoidably a mixed community, unlike heaven (or the world to come), there is bound to be a distinction between membership in the covenant and membership in the covenant community. 

Here below, the covenant community is a temporary and transitional organization. It's at the halfway mark on the journey. 

So you have to strike a balance. If you are too strict about membership, you will exclude some born-again Christians. Exclude some of the elect. If you are too lax, the church will mirror the world. 

"Christian baptism is modeled on the baptism of John; John’s baptism laid a foundation for and prefigured ours. But John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance (Acts 19:4). Those baptized were adults."

i) Isn't that appeal circular? If, by definition, John's baptism is a baptism of repentance; if, by definition, it was geared to adults, then by definition it's restricted to adults. It's like saying, "by definition, you can't be a married bachelor."

True, but tautologous. Like saying Alfa Romeo is an Italian sports car. No doubt. Does that mean all sports cars are Italian?

ii) Also, what was the age cut-off for John's baptism? Was it for adults, or did it include minors? Was the age of reason the threshold? 

Was John baptizing 7-8-year-old kids? That doesn't seem to be the targeted demographic niche. But that makes it disanalogous with credobaptism.  

"Baptism in Paul’s thinking signifies membership in the covenant because it signifies being made alive in Jesus—something reserved exclusively for covenant members.
Baptism is a symbol of regeneration. Thus it symbolizes covenant membership; not mere membership in the covenant community."
"Notice that baptism saves here. How? Not by removing spiritual dirt as water removes physical dirt, but by signifying our appeal to God through which are justified." 

Bnonn prooftexted this understanding by quoting or citing Rom 6:1-4, 1 Cor 5:17, Eph 2:5, Col 2:9, 1 Pet 3:21.

Several issues:

i) Because the mode of baptism is controversial, translators sidestep that controversy by transliterating the Greek word. If they were to translate the word, that would prejudge the mode of baptism. And their restraint is a prudent policy.

ii) Apropos (i), the English word "baptism" denotes a Christian sacrament (or "ordinance"). In English usage, it's a technical term for the Christian rite of initiation. Sometimes it's used figuratively. 

iii) Apropos (i-ii), this creates a risk of equivocation when citing baptismal texts from the NT. That's because, unlike the English word, the Greek word isn't a technical term for a Christian sacrament. It has more than one meaning. It can denote a Christian sacrament, or it can simply denote an action involving water. In addition, the Bible often uses aqueous theological metaphors.

When we read "baptism" (or "baptize") in the NT, we automatically associate that with a Christian sacrament. But that's conditioned by the connotations of the English word. The Greek word is less specialized and more polysemous. 

In the Gospels and Acts, the Gospels may make it clear that the word is used for water baptism. It's not the word alone, but the word in conjunction with the setting, that makes it refer to baptism. Indeed, that would be implicit even in the absence of the word.

But in the epistles, those narrative clues are often lacking. So you can't just assume, without further ado, that the Greek word denotes a Christian sacrament rather than a picturesque theological metaphor.  

iv) But even assuming, for the sake of argument, that all his prooftexts refer to the rite of baptism, they either prove too much or too little. 

a) These passages are hortatory and idealistic. They urge the recipients of the letter to emulate what baptism signifies. But that implies a gap between the sign and what they actually are. 

And that's a best-case scenario. That's for pious Christians who still fall short.

b) But, of course, Pauline churches also include Paul's opponents. They include heretics and apostates. What baptism signifies is in no sense true of them, even though they were baptized members of a local church planted by Paul. 

6 comments:

  1. It appears as though one of your primary arguments is that we cannot baptize all covenant members and you lean towards baptizing children which will at times include too many. But you didn't support that argument with much that I could think about. Do you have some good reasons for this so that I can think through the issue more.

    Also it sounds as though you agree with his main contention that the sign should only be given to members but then are you saying those infants are members in the covenant or they are a special class so they can get the sign but not be members which sometimes because we just can't know. Therefore we presume them part of the family unit?

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    1. To the contrary, I specifically said membership in the covenant was *not* an argument I was using for infant baptism. Likewise, I did *not* say the sign should only be given to members of the covenant. How you manage to infer the opposite of what I actually said is curious. You seem to be filtering my comments through a "covenant child" lens which I expressly distanced myself from using.

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    2. How do you substantiate your positive argument that children are extensions of the family which then warrants baptism?

      Also, if we cannot know if an infant is regenerated, are you saying to baptize these children of the elect anyway because it is inevitable that we can't match covenant members exactly. Since some infants are regenerated both sides are not matching the regenerate exactly and it is better to include them than to not.
      Is this like a pragmatic thing?

      If you agree that all in the new covenant are regenerated isn't it the proper route to wait until there are evidences of regeneration because we are limited and they can know.

      Maybe you have a very good resource on this topic. I lean towards the credo side but I am not firmly convicted yet.

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    3. "How do you substantiate your positive argument that children are extensions of the family which then warrants baptism?"

      i) For starters, there are monographs on the family in ancient Israel, the ANE, and Greco-Roman culture. Children were viewed as extensions of the family.

      ii) I haven't argued for infant baptism in my replies to Bnonn. I'm just critiquing his arguments against infant baptism. There's a difference.

      iii) In addition, there's a difference between saying infant baptism is obligatory and saying it's permissible. Given how vague Scripture is on the subject, it's hard to see how infant baptism could be forbidden. If God intended infant baptism to be prohibited, why not come right out and say so? The reason we're having this debate is the first place is because Scripture is fairly vague on the subject. 

"Also, if we cannot know if an infant is regenerated, are you saying to baptize these children of the elect anyway because it is inevitable that we can't match covenant members exactly. Since some infants are regenerated both sides are not matching the regenerate exactly and it is better to include them than to not. Is this like a pragmatic thing?"

      i) If church membership is too strict, you weed out wheat. If church membership is too lax, the weeds choke the wheat. So we need to avoid extremes as best we can.

      ii) I'm not basing baptism on covenant membership. For some reason you're stuck on that. Rather, I'm basing baptism on communal membership.

      Infant baptism would be a public acknowledgement that children born to members of the Christian community are born into the religious community to which their parents belong. At that age, they are members of the community via their parents. It's an ascribed status, not an achieved status. And that's a common understanding in the ancient world. 

"If you agree that all in the new covenant are regenerated isn't it the proper route to wait until there are evidences of regeneration because we are limited and they can know."

      What about waiting to baptize people until they lie on their deadbed? That avoids the risk of baptizing future apostates.

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    4. You seem to be saying the sign should not only be given to the covenant members but also to the infants in the covenant community. That one doesn't have to be a member of the covenant to receive the sign. What is the biblical basis for this? This seems like a very important part of your rebuttal.

      Also, Why is it not living by the secret will of God to baptize all these children since we cannot know if they are regenerated?

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    5. This is the third time you've imputed to me a position I never stated. You keep projecting your own framework onto me.

      Even credobaptists don't make membership in the covenant a condition for conferring the sign. Rather, they make a credible profession of faith the condition. The link between covenant membership and a credible profession of faith is indirect, and often unreliable.

      Consider the mass baptism in Acts 2. It's not as of the 3000 baptismal candidates were carefully interviewed. It's not as if they had fruits of repentance. The threshold for baptism was pretty low.

      Membership in the new covenant community was quite informal. You had neighborhood house-churches where people hung out.

      Likewise, I didn't appeal to the secret will of God in my argument.

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